Dr. Andrew Geall is the Chief Development Officer at Replicate Bioscience and co-founder of the company. Dr. Geall has over 20 years of professional experience in the development of drug delivery systems and is a pioneer in the fields of mRNA vaccines and nucleic acid delivery. He is an inventor on 41 patent families, with 505 applications and 203 issued patents in multiple jurisdictions.
Prior to joining Replicate, Dr. Geall was Chief Scientific Officer at Precision NanoSystems Inc. (PNI). Here, he focused on the creation of transformative nanoparticle medicines using their proprietary LNP delivery systems and microfluidic formulation platform. He has also held positions as Vice President of Formulations, Analytics and Chemistry at Avidity Biosciences, where he pioneered the development of their antibody-oligonucleotide conjugate delivery platform. As a member of the Executive Management, he helped raise over $100 million in venture capital and took the company public in June 2020 with an initial public stock offering of $259 million.
Prior to Avidity, he led the development of the mRNA vaccines platform in the Vaccine division of Novartis. Over 7 years, he created a global team and was Principal Investigator on a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) contract to develop self-amplifying mRNA vaccines. Dr. Geall also had a two-year tenure at Novartis Pharmaceuticals AG, where he was the Global siRNA Formulation Team Leader, responsible for the design and implementation of the siRNA delivery strategy.
Dr. Geall received his pharmacy degree from the University of Bath in the UK and went on to do his pre-registration training, as a hospital Pharmacist, in the aseptic dispensing unit at St Helens and Knowsley Trust Hospitals. He then obtained his PhD at University of Bath in non-viral gene delivery.
How are we improving our understanding of RNA technology for next generation vaccines? How will RNA transform therapeutics and cancer treatment?
10:00 Chair opening remarks
Prof Jeffrey Coller, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of RNA Biology and Therapeutics Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Johns Hopkins University
10:10 mRNA vaccines of the future: Bridging the Knowledge Gaps
Dr Sudha Chivukula, AVP, Head of Discovery Biology, mRNA Centre of Excellence, Sanofi
10:25 Beyond respiratory vaccines
Dr Jacqueline Miller, SVP, Therapeutic Area Head - Infectious Disease Development, Moderna
10:45 Individualized mRNA vaccines
Ruben Rizzi, Senior Vice President Global Regulatory Affairs, BioNtech
11:00 Accessing vast design space with modular high throughput platform for RNA therapeutics and vaccines
Dr Sarit Schwartz, Head of RNA, Business Development Gingko Bioworks
11:15 Analytical challenges in characterization of multivalent mRNA vaccines
Dr Gautam Sanyal, Principal Consultant and Founder, Vaccine Analytics, LLC
11:30 RNABL: A Novel RNA Delivery Platform for Therapeutic Applications
Dr Micheal Breen, Scientist, Tiba Biotech
11:45 From a preventive vaccine to a therapeutic vaccine
Dr Jason Zhang, CEO and Co-Founder, ZipCode Bio
12:00 – 1:00 Panel: Beyond prophylactic vaccines: the future of RNA therapeutics
Moderator: Anna Rose Welch, Editorial and Community Director, Advancing RNA, Life Science Connect
Dr Gilles Besin, Chief Scientific Officer, Orbital Therapeutics
Dr Gopi Shanker, Chief Scientific Officer, Beam Therapeutics
Dr Andrew Geall, Chief Development Officer, Replicate Bioscience
Dr Kate Zhang, Chief Scientific Officer, Hopewell Therapeutics